The mountain now flamed like a beacon, and I rowed for
dear life over a sea of blood.
Farquharson sat entranced before the spectacle, chanting to himself
a kind of insane ritual, like a Parsee fire-worshipper making
obeisance before his god. He was rapt away to some plane of mystic
exaltation, to some hinterland of the soul that merged upon madness.
When at length the boat crunched upon the sandy shore he got up
unsteadily from the stern and pointed to the pharos that flamed in
the heavens.
"The fire upon the altar is lit," he addressed me, oracularly, while
the fanatic light of a devotee burned in his eyes. "Shall we ascend
and prepare the sacrifice?"
I leaned over the oars, panting from my exertions, indifferent to
his rhapsody.
"If you'll take my advice, you'll get back at once to your bungalow
and strip off that wet sleeping-suit," I bluntly counseled him, but
I might as well have argued with a man in a trance.
He leaped over the gunwale and strode up the beach. Again he struck
his priest-like attitude and invoked me to follow.
"The fire upon the altar waits," he repeated, solemnly. Suddenly he
broke into a shrill laugh and ran like a deer in the direction of the
forest that stretched up the slopes of the mountain.
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